


I met you for a reason

by elenath_s



Series: Earth - 201,223 [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Cassian Andor (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Genderfluid Loki, Genderqueer Character, Genderqueer Thor, Kes Dameron (mentioned) - Freeform, Leon (Merlin) (Mentioned), Pre-Relationship, References to Canon Death, References to Drugs, Shara Bay (mentioned), The Master (Mentioned) - Freeform, genderqueer Loki, the Doctor (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 08:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20355460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenath_s/pseuds/elenath_s
Summary: The first time Tony meets Thor and Aurvandil, it’s an accident. He’s thirty-five, lonely and ignoring the world, tired of its expectations of him. One minute he’s in his lab in Malibu, the next, he’s standing on a clear version of his cliff side, his home gone and nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see.





	I met you for a reason

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, so this has been sitting in my brain for eons. Aurv's backstory will get explored in more detail later, so please bare with me haha  
I do not drink alcohol, nor do I know what withdrawal actually feels like, so everything here is information I've gathered form varying online sources. If anything is incorrect or could be handled better, please let me know.   
Like my last fic, this is unbeta-ed. I read through it quickly, but there are surely mistakes and they are all my own.

Tony blinks out at the horizon and frowns. He isn’t sure how he got here, standing on the edge of a cliff with a familiar view but he’s here now and he doesn’t know what to do. The view from the edge of the cliff is the same one Tony has from his bedroom in his mansion back in Malibu, but as he looks around himself, there is nothing that he recognises. Behind him, facing out towards the ocean, there is nothing but shin length grass for almost a kilometre. Then, sprouting out of the ground is tall, lush trees that he has never seen before, long gone by the time Tony had showed up to build his mansion. Just beyond the trees is what looks like a barrier. It shimmers like shards of broken glass, shining and reflecting as the segments oscillate around one another. Staring up and then around himself, Tony realises that the barrier only goes a kilometre or so further than the trees, leaving Tony in a dome with a diameter of maybe four kilometres if he’s measuring right. Seemingly beyond the barrier, clouds drift by, apparently unbothered by the wrongness below them as they continue onwards along their journey wherever the gentle breeze deems fit to take them.

There is a giant of a man standing several metres away, long golden hair spilling down to curl against the base of his neck. He’s probably almost two metres tall and built like a brick shithouse. He has a short-cropped beard, and even from Tony’s distance, he can see how blue the man’s eyes are. The man is armoured, a scarlet cloak billowing from his shoulders and a war hammer clasped tight in his hand. He reminds Tony of the knights in all those fairy tales he remembers his mother telling him. The man’s shoulders are tensed and Tony watches as the confused frown on his face morphs into one of anger instead.

There’s a woman in the field with them too. She’s closer to Tony than the man is and is almost the same height as Tony too. Her skin is the colour of bronze, and her dark hair is piled onto the back of her head in a series of elaborate braids. A huge blue parka with a furred hood hides her frame, but she seems like she’s wearing it more for the sake of it as opposed to being cold, because her feet are sandaled and her loose cropped trousers end in a band that hugs her calves. She looks surprised, her eyes wide as she stares at Tony then at the man in the cloak, before she takes a step back, her shock being replaced by panic in her wide umber eyes. Golden circles that shine like the sun encase her hands, and Tony thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, even if she looks inclined to throw herself off the cliff in her panic.

“You!” The man shouts, rounding on the woman and surging forwards. He grabs her by the front of her parka and hauls her off the floor, apparently not bothered by her scrabbling hands and kicking feet. “What witchery is this? What have you done?”

The woman’s whole body seems to shudder and shimmer the same brilliant golden and suddenly, she’s standing several metres away from both of them, further away from the cliff’s edge. She raises her hands placatingly but the golden rings move up from her hands to encircle her forearms too, their size growing as they get further up her arms. Each ring has more hoops within, swirling as the outer ring rotates around her. Tony can’t help but stare, because what the fuck? Tony’s smart, he knows he is, and while he’s perfectly aware that there are things in the universe that he doesn’t understand, he’s pretty sure that magic isn’t a thing. Tony’s equally blown away in awe and terrified, because how the hell is he supposed to defend himself against **that** if it turns out she’s out to kill him? 

“My name is Aurvandil,” she calls out, her voice gentle as she speaks. Even at their distance, Tony can see how the light from the circles around her hands dance around her eyes as well, burning low but clear against her tanned skin. “I can fix this, but you need to not attack me, alright?”

The man narrows his eyes and glances at both her and Tony before he relents and relaxes his posture, though it’s clear he’s still prepared to defend himself if it comes to it. 

“I am Prime Thor of Asgard,” Thor replies, their voice deep and commanding, though what they’re commanding is beyond Tony. Aurvandil rolls her eyes at them with a sarcastic scoff of laughter. “You think something funny?”

“I think the fact that you’re proud of being Aesir is funny,” she replies, her shoulders shrugging as she sidles closer to Thor. Her lips quirk up into something that’s in between teasing and mocking, but there isn’t any heat to her words, more an apathetic curiosity. “I think that the fact that you’re proud of your blood-soaked gold is funny.”

Thor’s grip on his hammer tightens. “Have care how you speak, **girl**.”

Aurvandil scoffs, her body shifting into a challenging tilt, her grin sharper than it had been a second ago and definitely more on the side of mocking now. “Make me, **child**.”

The pair stare each other down for what seems like an eternity, before Aurvandil laughs, the noise a little empty but still warm as her eyes crinkle and she takes a step back. Thor frowns at her before glancing at Tony, as if to ask ‘_ do you understand what the fuck is happening _ ?’ to which Tony just replies with an awkward shrug, because why would **he** understand what’s happening? For once, Tony seems to be the most out of the loop in a group, and that hadn’t happened to Tony since he was ten. 

“No worries,” Aurvandil says, her grin content and not at all malicious like it had been a second ago, though it seems a sad to Tony, but maybe he’s just imagining it. “I was proud of my people too until I learned how much blood was on our collective hands. Cut ties and jumped ship after that.” Tony doesn’t even have time to catch up with what had just happened before Aurvandil is turning to look at him, her large dark eyes seemingly staring into his soul. “What’s your name?”

Again, not a situation Tony has ever been in before.

“Uh, I’m - I’m Tony,” Tony replies, shifting uncomfortably and hating how he stumbles over his words, hating how meek he seems compared to their almost overwhelming auras. 

“Hi, Tony,” Aurvandil greets, her grin losing its sadness a little as she moves closer to shake his hand. “So basic rundown, I was playing with something I shouldn’t have been, and accidentally dragged all three of us here. From what I can figure, we were all in the same place and time but at different points in the timeline and I touched something I shouldn’t have.” She shrugs again, as if what she had just said made any sense at all to them. Tony has no clue how Aurvandil could do whatever is happening, but she seems to have a handle on the situation, and Tony is more than willing to sit back and let someone else have the reins on this one. “I have a bunch of ideas of how to undo this, but I can’t guarantee a time frame, so maybe get comfy, just in case it takes a while.”

* * *

It’s been nearly a day since they had appeared, in this strange, foreign version of the cliff Thor had found in their bid for a little peace away from Asgard. They know they are to be Asgard’s monarch one day, no matter how much Loki clearly dislikes the idea, that is the burden of being first born. And of course they **want **to be monarch, to lead their people to victory and prosperity, but everyone has such high expectations of them, and they aren’t sure they’ll ever be able to live up to their father’s grandeur. They are supposed to be a warrior and a monarch and here are two mortals who clearly hold no respect for them. One even dares to look at them as lesser, has the gall to mock them for false bloodsheds and dishonors. Despite their grievances though, the disrespectful woman is their only way home now, as Thor’s own sorcery skills are severely lacking.

Tony, the man with the strange facial hair, has taken Aurvandil’s promise to send them home and curled up beneath a tree. Thor watches as the man refuses to let either of them out of his sight, staring at them both even when his eyelids droop and he sways a little. Although neither mortal know who they are and what their title means, they’re stuck with them for the time being, and it would significantly lower morale if one of them died.

“Aurvandil?” Thor asks, frowning as the woman sticks her hand into nothing, emerging with a glittering thread the colour of the sky. She’s been doing this since they had arrived, each time drawing forth a new thread as she steadily makes her way around the meadow. “Something is wrong with Tony.”

“What do you mean?” Aurvandil asks, her face pulling into a frown of her own as she stares at the man in question. Tony’s arms have moved to curl protectively around his stomach and a grimace pulls at his face. “What’s up?”

Thor shrugs. “I don’t know. When I asked, he said it was nothing serious and that I should leave him alone.”

She drops the thread. “Well, that’s clearly bullshit,” Aurvandil huffs. Dusting her hands off on her trousers, she makes her way towards Tony.

“Tony? What’s wrong?” Aurvandil asks, frowning in worry as she crouches down so that she’s eye level with the man. 

“Nothing, I’m fine,” Tony replies, waving off her worry with faked nonchalance.

Thor frowns. “Clearly you are unwell, and it would do no good to leave you untreated. If there is something we can do, you must let us know.”

“There’s nothing **anyone** can do, so leave me alone,” Tony snaps, shrugging away from Thor’s concerned touch. 

Aurvandil grabs his hand, holding him firmly as he tries to twist away. Shocking both of them, she licks the back of his hand, grimacing at the taste and letting him go. 

“Your pulse is too fast and your temperature’s up,” she states, her eyes narrowed in concentration for a moment before she nods shallowly to herself. “So alcohol withdrawal’s gotta suck.” She sits down across from Tony with a sympathetic tilt to her lips. “I can probably find you some water, but you’re right, in our present situation, there’s not much we can do. Maybe I can make it hurt less, but other than that…”

“So leave me alone,” Tony huffs, turning away from them both and curling tighter around himself. 

Aurvandil sighs and her shoulders droop. There’s a moment of silence before she turns to Thor, her eyes sparkling.

“You’re Thor of Asgard,” she says, and Thor raises an eyebrow at her. “You’re the god of thunder.”

“Yes, and your point is?” They ask. Why is she wasting breath stating facts that everyone already knows?

“You can make it rain.” She says this like she expects them to know what that means, in the bigger picture, and Thor just frowns at her. “We need water, and the only water we have available is the ocean, and I don’t know about you, but salty water is gross and Tony can’t drink it, so you gotta make it rain so that we have drinkable water.”

Thor blinks. “Right, yes, of course.” 

They close their eyes and concentrate. It’s always harder to call the rain outside of the heat of battle. Without the adrenalin and the almost unstoppable fluidity of their movements, it’s hard to feel the lightning in their blood, the thunder of their heartbeat, and it takes Thor a moment to find it. When they do, they open their eyes and stare up at the gathering storm clouds overhead. The sky swirls grey with the storm, and as the rain begins to fall Aurvandil twists her wrist. The tree above them arches over, the branches interlocking and providing them shelter, the tree’s woven limbs not letting a single drop of water onto the trio below. She then brings her hands together, and curls her fingers like she’s holding a bowl, forming a bucket like structure out of a substance resembling the barrier around their cliff. It shimmers against the gold of her hands and the cracks of lightning that now dance against the darkened sky, and she puts it down outside of the shelter. Rain begins to collect in the bottom.

“Make sure you stay hydrated,” Aurvandil instructs, her gaze soft but detached as she stands up. There’s something in her posture that Thor recognises, a battle weariness, that they’ve seen in the older generations on Asgard, a hollowness that takes root after seeing too much. Thor recognizes her mourning, and wonders who she lost to have her light snuffed out so completely. “I need to find the way home, I have -”

Whatever words were to come next, she swallows them. Instead, she shakes her head and moves back over to where she had been when they had all arrived in this strange place. She shoves her hand back into nothingness. 

Thor wanders what she’s left behind. Their magic was never as powerful as Loki’s, nor would it ever be, but they can see Aurvandil’s grief weighing heavily on her shoulders, fresh and cold and deep. Whoever she lost was important to her, and their absence is like a weight that drags behind her as she walks. They wonder what she has left, after a loss so devastating. Sorrow settles in their chest, and they think that she had been beautiful once, when she had been happy, and they hope, should they stay in contact after all of this is over, that they get to see what she’s like when she’s happy, because even with her grief, she burns bright like a supernova, and they’re sure that her light would be most impressive when her soul sings with joy. 

Thor turns back to Tony as the man huffs but shifts so that he can watch the bucket fill. Tony is beautiful though, even in his sickness. His eyes are large and doe-like, barely concealing the knowledge that Tony clearly holds dearly, and they shine like precious gemstones in the flashes of lightning. Thor can tell Tony’s work is laborious from the callouses they catch flashes of on Tony’s palms. Work scars mar his skin from the tips of his fingers and up along his arms. Thor wonders if maybe he’s a smith of some sort. They’re sure Tony’s work is as brilliant as he is though, regardless of his profession. 

Despite the less than ideal circumstances, Thor is grateful for this opportunity. They’ll never admit it to Aurvandil or Tony, both of whom clearly do not care about who they are, but Thor’s glad they got the chance to meet them both. They doubt there are many others in the universe that are as interesting at a single glance as these two are.

Thor snaps out of their thoughts by their stomach announcing its hunger. Tony looks over at them with a smirk and a raised eyebrow and Thor rolls their eyes at his teasing. Thor frowns though and looks around themselves. There doesn’t appear to be much room within the tree line for animals, and Thor doubts there will be much forageable food, but if they’re stuck here for a while (which they may well be, Thor thinks as they look over at Aurvandil again, who’s inspecting another colourful thread from the void) they should probably find something to eat.

* * *

Aurvandil’s worried. She’s been away from home for three days now, and she had told Kes and Shara she was only going for a walk, to clear her head, and now? Now she didn’t know if she’d even be able to get home, or if she’s stuck in this place, with these people, forever. She supposes it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the universe, to get stuck here with Thor and Tony. Thor is brash, arrogant and naïve, but they’re kind in their tending to Tony and in their mission to be the only one that has to provide food and water. They’re a good fisher and hunter, and a good cook, and their campfire stories are hilarious. Tony spends a lot of time confused at the moment, his temperature dangerously close to a fever as he huddles under the same tree that he had picked when they had arrived, and there had been a moment where he had run for the cliff to be sick over the edge, but in his moments of clarity, he’s wicked smart and snarky. Maybe they both remind Aurvandil of her childhood friends, but if they do, she suppresses those thoughts, refusing to go near the memories that still haunt her on the rare occasions when she sleeps. 

The coat that hadn’t always been hers still hangs loosely over her shoulders as she searches for the right thread. Their cliff is self contained, a little bubble dimension stuck to the side of their home one, and if she can find the right thread, she can use it as a pathway to take them home, but without Raea, she has to be careful. Travel through the time-space vortex without a vehicle is difficult enough within their main universe. 

She pauses her search to look over at Tony. He’s been hallucinating, mistaking her for someone called Pepper, whoever that was. She had sung to him, in a bid to help him sleep, and he had sobbed and said, “Te extraño Mamá,” and that had been too much for her to handle. She’d left him in Thor’s care for a while, while she continued to look for the way home. Thor has left him unattended for the moment though, and Aurvandil isn’t sure where they’ve gone, but Tony’s awake and looks bleary and panicked, so Aurvandil stands and makes her way over to him.

“Hey, Tony,” she greets, her voice gentle. Tony startles and looks up at her. His eyes are ringed by darkness, heavy bags forming with his insomnia and the rest of his face a sickly flushed pink. He’s sweating, his temperature having finally hit a fever, and his hands are shaking. “Soy yo, Aurvandil. ¿Me recuerdas?”

Tony nods slowly and Aurvandil sighs. She sits down next to Tony and pulls him against her side gently, curling a protective arm around his shoulders and holding him close. He still trembles, but the tremors are more subdued now with something to tether him. She rocks him gently and combs her fingers through his sweaty hair, humming quietly under her breath. She murmurs a few spells, soft golden mandalas spinning gently around Tony and easing the pain and his sleep as much as possible. By the time Thor comes back over, that night’s dinner slung over one shoulder, Tony is in a fitful sleep, curled tight against Aurvandil’s side.

There’s something so familiar in her position, protectively wrapped around someone as they struggle to sleep, and Aurvandil has to take a few steadying breaths to stop herself from plummeting into the deep recesses of panic. Tony’s warmth, pressed against her side, reminds her too much of Koschei, during the nights in the Academy when he couldn’t sleep because the drums only he could hear were far too loud for him to find any peace; it reminds her of Cassian too, when he’d come home from a mission, shaking and vacant faced, and she’d hold him gently until he came back to himself, sobbing quietly and unable to sleep lest his actions haunt him through the night. The bitter-sweet reminders of her past, some of it long left behind and some of it fresh and deep and cutting, settle in her chest and cools her down to her bone marrow, ice spreading under her skin and making it hard to take air into her lungs.

Thor smooths away Aurvandil’s oncoming panic attack. They’ve gotten the dinner cooking and are now holding her hand gently in theirs. Their grip is firm but kind, and Aurvandil can feel their heat seeping into her and mingling with Tony’s in her core. Together, both Thor and Tony fan some warmth back into her being and the ice recedes, her lungs expanding and contracting more easily as she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Are you alright?” Thor asks. It’s been a long while since she’s calmed down, the chill in her bones still there but more a morning frost than a glacier now. They’re still holding hands, and part of Aurvandil is worried that maybe she should have let go at some point, but exhaustion is worming its way into her chest and she can’t find it within herself to care.

She decides she likes Thor. Not just tolerates their presence, but actually enjoys the time they’ve spent together. Perhaps they’re arrogant, occasionally very loud, and their moods change often, but they have an earnest smile and a need to make sure she and Tony are okay, which is endearing, and she thinks, maybe, they could even be friends. Because even though Thor reminds her a lot of Koschei, from their early days at the Academy, Thor isn’t malicious, they don’t want to hurt people or command them, Thor just wants to protect people, and Aurvandil wants to hold their golden heart close and keep it safe forever. 

She has to stop herself from grimacing at that realization. Getting attached to people hasn’t exactly proven to go well for her. First she lost Koschei to his madness, Leon left Gallifrey as soon as they’d all graduated, and Theta had left long before that. Then Koschei died and Gallifrey burned and she found a home with Cassian only to lose him too. Aurvandil didn’t know if she could survive another loss. 

Despite her unease at potentially forming a lasting attachment to Thor, she’s grateful for their worry. She nods sleepily and her lips pull up into what she hopes is a grateful smile.

“I am, thank you,” she murmurs, her eyelids drooping as she presses her cheek against Tony’s head. She squeezes Thor’s fingers, in hopes that they understand how much she appreciates their comfort. “And I’m sorry about being a bitch earlier. I think you’ll be a great monarch when the time comes.”

Thor hums and squeezes her fingers in return. “Thank you. And I apologize as well. I should not have judged you so quickly. You are a powerful sorcerer and you have every right to be proud of that.”

Aurvandil scoffs and shakes her head. Thor frowns at her but they say nothing, waiting to see if she will elaborate or not.

She lets out a sigh. “What good is being this powerful if I can’t protect my loved ones?”

* * *

Tony wakes up pressed against Aurvandil’s side. He’s still sweating like a pig but Aurvandil is strangely cold to the touch, and it feels like that’s helping him. He knows that Aurvandil is doing something magical to him, because he’s in day four of withdrawal and compared to his last attempt at giving up alcohol, he feels a lot less like death than he did then. That time, he’d made it the whole way through, but had promptly fallen right off the wagon again at a party a week later. He’d managed to kick the cocaine habit though, after weeks in a rehab clinic, feeling like death had come for him at last and always fucking hungry, but at least he’d actually managed it. This though, alcohol withdrawal, Tony knew it was supposed to be harder on the body than that. He’d read up on the symptoms, ages ago, when he’d first tried, but he’d never got there in the end. Maybe this time he could do it.

Shifting slightly to look over at Aurvandil, Tony frowns. She’s asleep, her brows furrowed into a frown and her shoulders tense. Her fingers are curled tightly around Thor’s, who’s also asleep, though their slumber is clearly much more restful than Aurvandil’s. They’re pressed against Aurvandil’s other side, their head resting on her shoulder as they snore.

Tony wonders, after Aurvandil sends them all home, if he’ll ever see either of them again. He hopes so. They’re both complete strangers, who have no idea who Tony even is, but here they are, sitting with him as he shakes and his mind spins, tethering him to Earth and refusing to let him slip away. He’s grateful for their comfort and he wonders if there’s anyone back home that would do the same for him. Rhodey would, a hundred percent. He already had, after all, coming to the clinic whenever he could, to sit by Tony’s side. Tony could count on Rhodey, always could. Obadiah? Probably. Lord knows Obie’s put up with enough of Tony’s shit to weather this. Would Pepper? Tony isn’t sure. Sometimes it seems like they’re friends, and sometimes it seems like he’s just her boss. He isn’t sure if she’d sit by his side through withdrawal. He isn’t sure if he wants to know.

He wants to go home. He misses Rhodey and Pepper and his bots and his own damn bed. What if he never gets to? What if Aurvandil can’t send them home? What if she lied? Would he even be missed? He’s pretty sure Rhodey would miss him… pretty sure. He doesn’t know if Obadiah would. Tony’s been nothing but a drunk, drugged up pain in the ass for years, maybe Obadiah would enjoy the peace. Tony doesn’t think Pepper would miss him. He hopes she would, but he doubts it. Would his bots miss him? Dum-e, Butterfingers, U? JARVIS? Would any of them miss him? Would they even understand where he had gone? 

Thor stirs on Aurvandil’s other side and jolts Tony out of his spiral. For a moment they look confused, disorientated, but that passes quickly, a frown pulling at their handsome features as they carefully extract themselves from Aurvandil and stand up. Thor meets Tony’s gaze for a moment, their bright cobalt eyes stormy, before they turn and stomp off into the forest.

Tony listens to them walking away for a while. Tony’s whole body aches with exhaustion, and he’s very aware that he’s sweated the whole way through his clothes. His throat is dry, and his head pounds with a headache, so he slowly slips out from under Aurvandil’s arm, and he shuffles over to the bucket. It shimmers in the daylight and it feels like cut glass between Tony’s palms as he lifts it to his lips. The water sloshes and spills down his front, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Thor can just make it rain to fill it again later.

As he’s putting the bucket down again, sufficiently hydrated for the time being, thunder rumbles overhead, the clouds darkening as they let loose a sudden shower of rain. A crack of lightning lights up the sky like a bomb, and Tony can feel the ground shake with it. He frowns and looks over at Aurvandil. She’s still sleeping. He stands, his muscles screaming at him to sit the fuck back down, and Tony ignores the pain in favour of making his way into the forest after Thor. Thor can’t have gone very far in such a short amount of time, and Tony finds them quickly.

They’re standing in a crater, several trees blown back and charred, most likely from the lightning. They’re furious, Tony can tell. It’s in their posture and in the wrinkling of their face as they glare up at the sky and shout things Tony doesn’t need a translator to know they’re rude. 

Tony’s head spins, his vision swimming, and for a moment, he isn’t sure Thor is real, because what kind of person can be that unbothered by lightning dancing up their arms like that? Tony sways on his feet, regretting standing up at all, but he staggers closer to Thor, his hand outstretched in both a placating manner and an attempt to steady himself.

His vision is a little spotty, and he’s still not sure that Thor is real until his hand meets the warm metal of Thor’s armoured sleeves. Static electricity rushes up Tony’s arm. It tingles and all his hair stands on end as it continues to zip around his body. Tony lets out a faint laugh as his vision goes black and he falls.

* * *

The storm isn’t planned. They know the fire is still going, though it’s probably out now, and Thor didn’t mean to ruin dinner, didn’t mean to waste the only deer they’d been able to find today, but on waking up on the strange cliff, with people who were stranger still, Thor hadn’t been able to breathe. Though they’d found they rather enjoyed both Aurvandil and Tony’s company, part of them had hoped it was all a dream, that they aren’t really stuck, far away from home, but no such luck. It’s real and vivid and **not home**, and though they’d never admit it, they long for the warm embrace of their mother, even after only four days away from home.

Thunder roars in their ears, their blood pumping as they’re struck by lightning, the blast knocking the trees over and leaving everything in ruin. They don’t mean the destruction; they don’t mean for the fires that start, only to drown in the rain that follows, but there’s nothing that can quell the panic. They’d been away from home so often before, but always with a way home, always connected to Heimdall, but here, Thor’s alone. They had tried to call for help, but no one seemed to hear them as they screamed up at the clouds.

There’s movement to Thor’s left, but they don’t register it fully until Tony’s fingers are curling around Thor’s bicep. There isn’t even a moment to acknowledge the man before Tony’s crumpling to the ground, his body stiff as a board and convulsing.

Thor drops to the ground. Panic is racing through their veins and thunder roars overhead to mimic it. Urgently, Thor clears away anything that could hurt Tony: parts of the trees and rocks, it all gets cleared away. As gently as they can, Thor rolls Tony onto his side. They cradle is head to protect it and wait for the convulsions to stop.

It’s only a minute later that Tony comes too again. His movements are sluggish and his gaze is bleary, and Thor scoops him to their chest and carries him back to their little campsite. Thor had heard stories before, of seizures and they knew the theory, had thought themselves prepared, but that minute had been the longest of their life, and they had never felt so helpless before.

“Thor?” Aurvandil asks, as Thor emerges from the tree line and lays Tony down under their shelter. Her face twists into a concerned frown and the golden hoops encase her arms again as she keeps the rain off their dinner she had seemingly saved. “What happened? Is Tony okay?”

“Jus’ a seizure,” Tony replies from his spot on the floor, his words slurring as he sits up against the truck of the tree. “’m fine.”

Thor takes over tending to the dinner, something they know how to do well, while Aurvandil squats in front of Tony. She shakes her right arm out and the hoops disappear. Her index finger glows brightly though, and she waves it in front of Tony’s eyes. She presses her hand to his forehead, and the light dies down, before a gentle glow emanates from her palm, seeping into Tony’s forehead. Tony groans happily and sags back against the tree.

“I’m assuming Thor made sure you didn’t hit your head, but I checked just in case, and you don’t have a concussion or any brain swelling,” she announces reassuringly. “I’ve alleviated the pain and brought your temperature down, but this is withdrawal we’re talking about here, so this probably isn’t the first seizure you’re going to have today.”

Tony whines like a petulant child and Thor chuckles. 

“Why can’t you get rid of all the symptoms?” Tony asks, shifting so that he can tip forwards and press his face against her collarbones. Aurvandil scowls as he nearly tips her over, but after regaining her balance, she gently runs her fingers through his hair sympathetically. 

“Because that’s not how my magic works,” she states. “It can’t just make your body not addicted to alcohol, so even if I get rid of all the symptoms, they’ll all be back in a day or two and you’d have to start from scratch.” She tips Tony back onto the tree and sits down next to him again. She rubs gently over his thumb knuckle as she interlocks their fingers. Tony shifts so he can lean against her. “It’s better for you in the long run if you just sweat it out.”

Tony whines again and presses his face against her shoulder, but doesn’t argue further, and Thor loads up the bowls Aurvandil had made with dinner for them all.

Once they’ve all eaten, Tony goes back to sleep. Aurvandil stands and recommences her slow journey around the cliff’s edge in search of the right thread. Thor joins her, and they make small talk. She talks about where she and her son lived, a little planet called Fest. They lived on a hillside, near the markets. She misses it there, but she doesn’t say why she can’t go back. Thor suspects she wouldn’t without her son. Thor talks about the markets on Asgard. They tell Aurvandil stories about the mischief Loki gets up to, and how, even though it’s almost always frustrating at the time, Loki’s tricks are always funny to look back on.

They lapse into silence as Aurvandil inspects another thread.

“I don’t know if I’ll be a very good Monarch,” Thor confesses after a moment. Aurvandil turns to inspect them instead and they continue. “Everyone expects me to rule like my father, and I don’t know how.”

“You shouldn’t compare yourself to your father,” she says as she drops the thread in favour of another one. She studies the new thread for a moment, collecting her thoughts, before she turns to Thor was a gentle smile on her lips. “No one is ever exactly like anyone else. When your time comes, rule as yourself, not your father. You’ll do a better job of it then.”

Thor hums. “Perhaps you’re right.” Aurvandil rolls her eyes and Thor chuckles. “Thank you, Aurvandil. Your assurance means a lot to me, I hope you know that.”

Aurvandil just returns the smile and nods, and together, they make their way back over to Tony for the evening. 

* * *

It’s day seven of being on the cliff. The withdrawal symptoms have almost all vanished by now: no more seizures, no more hallucinating, no more fever, though he’s still a little warm and his hands still tremble. Also, apparently the hallucination of his mother singing to him hadn’t been a total hallucination, and when Thor informed him of that fact, Tony had really considered throwing himself off the cliff. Aurvandil had said it was okay, but she seemed a little distant and sad, so neither Thor nor Tony brought it up again. 

“How long did you say this would take, Aurv?” Tony asks, his tone exasperated as he watches the woman stick her hand back into the void and pull out a glittery pink thread. She’d made her way around the edge of the cliff and to the tree line over the last seven days. She’d put her hand in nothing, retrieve a thread that wasn’t to her liking, and move forwards an inch before repeating the process again. Aurvandil shoves the thread back into the void with a huff and shuffles forwards an inch. Tony rolls his eyes.

“I didn’t,” she replies, sticking her hand back into the void, this time retrieving a threat that was a paler pink to the last one and less glittery. “Honestly, I warned you that this could take a while, stop being impatient.”

“We’ve been here a week,” Tony replies, fixing the woman with a deadpan stare as she drops the thread to stare at him with wide eyes. He wipes his clammy hands down on his jeans and stuffs them into his pockets to hide their tremor. 

“Really?” Aurvandil looks around them in confusion, her brow furrowed as she seems to process that information. She shakes her head and turns back to Tony. Her eyes catch on his pocketed hands for a moment, but she moves on quickly. “Sorry, immortality can fuck with your perception of time. Also, I’ve been doing basically the same thing for a week. I lost track, sorry. I’ll try to move faster.”

“What’re you even doing?” Tony asks, frowning at the next thread that’s pulled out of the void and inspected before being released to whence it came. 

Aurvandil brandishes a new thread at him as she replies. “Looking for the way home. These are the threads of the multiverse. They connect everything, every universe. It’s very magic.” She peers down at the thread in her hand before wrinkling her nose at it and moving on to the next. “Honestly, I don’t know what your brain is seeing, it’s visualized differently for everyone, but think of it like a web right? And everything is connected, but also everything is separate, if that makes sense? I dunno, like, okay,” -Aurvandil takes a breath, seemingly the first one in the last couple of minutes- “Like, picture a spider web, right? Now cover it in flies or some shit, whatever the spider is eating. And each fly represents one universe. It’s individual, and alone, but it’s connected to the other flies by the web. These threads are the web.”

“And we’re **in** a fly?” Tony asks, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “That is super gross and I’m also pretty sure quantum physics doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Aurvandil huffs. “I failed quantum physics **epically** in school. This is the best I’ve got for you. Magic.” She shrugs, tossing the last thread away and moving on to the next. “And technically, we’re something stuck to the outside of the fly. I don’t think this is its own universe, the air doesn’t taste right for that. I just have to find the right thread for us and then I can send us back.”

Tony wants so badly to argue with her, but he also really wants to go home. Alcohol withdrawal had hit him like a punch to the gut, and he had spent the last day laying on his side and shuddering as seizures passed through him. Aurvandil had paused her thread search to hold his hand and radiate a weird energy that helped him, but it hadn’t sucked any less. Thor had tried to help as well, Tony’s pretty sure, but he can’t tell what had been real or not. Besides, even if alcohol withdrawal hadn’t slammed him with seizures and anxiety and a whole host of other shit, he’s bored with sitting in a field. While he had been coherent, all he did was watch Aurvandil put her hand into **nothing**, only to emerge with another thread, all while Thor roamed around, taking their frustration at being stuck out on trees and the animals they brought back to the others for food. To go home though, he needs to let Aurvandil do whatever the hell she wants with the fabric of reality and keep her happy. Tony isn’t sure if she’s petty enough to leave him behind if he pisses her off and he doesn’t want to test that. She doesn’t seem like she would be, after all, she had stuck through the worst of his withdrawal symptoms with a calm and grace he didn’t think existed, but he can’t be certain. Maybe she would leave him? And then what would he do? He’d be stuck here, in this field, all alone, because Thor hasn’t pissed her off, so obviously, she’d take them with her. Maybe he was over thinking this a little too much. 

“Do we know if Thor’s okay?” Aurvandil asks, snapping Tony out of his spiral and growing panic. She’s looking past Tony at Thor, who looks like a dejected puppy as they sit on the edge of the cliff and stare out at the shimmering barrier.

“Not a clue,” Tony replies with a forcibly nonchalant shrug. “Want me to see?”

Aurvandil nods. “Please.” She looks like she wants to say something else but she bites her lip and sticks her hand back into nothing.

Tony nods. By the time Tony has wandered over to the cliff’s edge, Thor has tossed their hammer to the bottom of the cliff with a defeated huff, their shoulders hunching inwards and their brows pinched into a frown. 

“You okay, big guy?” Tony asks, flopping down to sit next to Thor.

“No one can see me,” Thor replied glumly, gesturing up at the sky with a halfhearted shrug. They sigh and stick their hand out, calling their hammer back to them before tossing it in the ocean again. “I am abandoned.”

“Aurv’s working on a way to get us out, okay?” Tony reassures. Thor just hums in reply and calls the hammer back. “Besides, you’re not alone, you’ve got us.”

Thor glances at Tony, their lips quirking upwards in a small smile, and Tony returns it enthusiastically.

If Tony is being honest, as much as he wants to go home, this was a much-needed break. He’s still sweaty as hell and his hands still shake, but his fever had broken the day before, and Tony is glad for it. As much as his throat feels parched and his fingers itch to get a hold of a bottle, Tony could safely say he hasn’t consumed any alcohol in seven, going on eight days, and he’s damn proud of that, even if the situation doesn’t allow for anything else. Maybe he’d be able to keep this up when he goes home. He hopes so.

They stay like that for a while. At some point, Tony’s hand finds Thor’s and they watch the sun dip below the horizon, the barrier making the sky look like a kaleidoscope as reds and oranges and purples seep into the blue before them. 

“Guys guys guys!” Aurvandil calls out to them. They turn to see what the fuss is. She’s jumping on the spot with a thread in hand that glittered blue and gold in the twilight with a triumphant look on her face. “I think I found the right one, get over here!”

* * *

When Aurvandil shows them the thread, Thor doesn’t understand what makes it different to the hundreds they had seen before. Sure, the colour is different, but they don’t understand what makes it special until Aurvandil urges both them and Tony to place their hands over her own.

Images of the same cliff flash through Thor’s mind. One of it empty, more forested than it is now, but empty of sentient life. The next is the way it is now, but with the telltale scorch marks of the Bifrost burned into the grass, a different version of Thor standing in the centre of the rune circle. In the image after that, both Thor and the scorch marks are gone, but there’s a sleek, chrome cylinder, the name Raea painted lovingly across the side in blue, with Aurvandil standing next to it as she wipes away tears. The following images contain people Thor doesn’t recognise. The trees steadily get cleared away, building appearing behind it along the rest of the cliffs that they don’t have access to, until Tony’s standing there. He builds himself a house. It’s white and sprawling and fluid and leans out over the edge of the cliff. They stand in his workshop as the images slow down until they’re watching him slowly tinker with a car.

The images stop as suddenly as they began. Thor knows it can’t have been more than a few seconds, but they also know that they’d just watched the life of their cliff, and it feels like they had spent eons watching it evolve into a home for someone that Thor now thought of dearly.

They stumble back, knocking shoulders with Tony as he does the same, and they stare at Aurvandil in both awe and terrified confusion, because she hadn’t reacted at all. They had just seen eons pass in mere moments, and it left Thor reeling, their mind a soggy mess as they try to regain equilibrium, and Tony seems to suffer the same fate, but Aurvandil? She’s calm and collected, her eyes burning amber as she clutches the thread, her skin glowing as she holds tightly to it.

“What just happened?” Tony asks, his voice quiet as he looks at Aurvandil, his doe eyes wide and shining. “What did you do?”

“I showed you home,” Aurvandil replies, her voice distorted and echoing as she stares impassively at them both. There’s something ethereal and not quite right about her now, and Tony takes a step forwards, wrapping his hand around her wrist in worry. “It’s time to go home now.”

“Aurv? Aurv, are you okay?” Tony asks, glancing back at Thor for help. Thor moves to her other side, their eyes just as wide and panicked. 

“Aurvandil, please,” Thor pleads.

“It’s time to go home now,” Aurvandil repeats, and Thor barely has a chance to comprehend her words before their vision whites out and they feel themselves falling. They lose their grip on Aurvandil, and they can’t find her or Tony even as they swing their arms wildly in search of them. They spiral downwards, can feel the ground hurtling towards them. They squeeze their eyes shut and they’re engulfed in a different blindness. They hit the ground and slam into unconsciousness.

* * *

Tony comes too to someone shaking his arm.

“Aurv?” Tony murmurs, blinking his eyes blearily. The person above him slowly comes into focus, and Tony quickly realises it isn’t Aurvandil. Pepper’s worried frown is clearer now, and Tony frowns, pushing up off the floor and away from her.

“Tony -”

“JARVIS, what time is it? What day?” Tony asks, stumbling over to the stash of alcohol he has in the lab. He’s still sweaty, and his clothes are still filthy from living in a field for a week, but he’s back in his lab. His head still pounds, and as he comes to a stop in front of his little alcohol collection, he considers having a drink, but he banishes the thought. He wasn’t just going to let Aurvandil and Thor down by giving in as soon as he got home. He would not let himself down.

He’s in the middle of pouring a fancy and very expensive bottle of whiskey down the sink when JARVIS replies, “The date is the eighth of February 2005, and it is currently 04:32pm.”

Tony freezes. That can’t be possible. “What did you say?”

Pepper is frowning at him in worry as JARVIS repeats his previous statement and Tony moves on to the next bottle. No time had passed at all. It was like he’d never left. But he’s living proof of what happened and he sure as hell isn’t letting go of all that.

“Tony, are you alright?” She asks him, her lips pressed into a thin worried line.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tony replies flippantly. He throws the bottles into the recycling, relishing in the loud shattering sound as the hit the bottom, before turning to Pepper. “I want all the alcohol in the house gone, in the bin, donated to someone, regifted, I don’t care, I want it all gone.”

“Tony, you’ve tried this before,” Pepper says, though not unkindly, as if she’s asking if he really wants to try this again, and Tony nods.

“I’ve made a promise to myself,” Tony replies earnestly. “I’m going sober, all of it has to go, and decline any party invites to things with copious amounts of alcohol.” He looks her in the eyes and he puts his hands on her shoulders. “I’m doing it this time, Pepper, I really am.”

Pepper smiles hesitantly, and she nods. “I’m proud of you, Tony.”

“Yeah? I am too,” he replies, because it just isn’t a promise to himself, it’s a promise to Thor and Aurvandil, wherever they are, too. They supported him through the worst of it, and for them, he’d make sure he gets sober.

* * *

Aurvandil opens her eyes and stares up at the sky. The grass beneath her hands is lush and waxy, and she can tell, just by the taste of the air, that not a second had passed while she had been with Thor and Tony. She’ll miss them, she thinks. Her fingers curl in the grass, and she **knows** she’ll miss them. Even though they’d only been together a short time, they had been there to support her, without even knowing there was something wrong, and they had fanned the dying ember in her chest back into a flame. The flame is still small, weak and in need of stoking, but it’s back, burning warm beneath her ribs, and she has them both to thank for that. 

She sits up and pulls Cassian’s coat tighter around her shoulders. She sighs as she stands up and takes the coat off. It’s time to let go of a ghost. Time to be there for the people who’ve also been left behind, time to be part of the family again. She’ll do better for Kes and Shara, she’ll do better for the Rebellion, because Cassian had given his life for it, for the cause, and like hell is she going to let his death be in vain.

She pauses, staring down at her trembling hands, and realises, this is the first time she’s admitted it. The first time she’s been honest with herself. Cassian is dead, reduced to star dust so far away from home, and she’d never get to see him again. Her breath shudders and she blinks back tears. He’s gone. Her boy is gone, and she doesn’t even have a body to bury. 

She sniffs. She wipes her tears and straightens her back. She’s going to go home, she will be better, and she doesn’t think she would have gotten to this point so quickly without Thor and Tony. 

Gently, she runs her fingers along Raea’s door seams, before snapping her fingers. Raea’s door slides open and Aurvandil steps inside. She hangs the coat on the coat rack by the door and meanders her way up towards the centre console. She’s definitely missed Raea, and the TARDIS hums a warm, deep noise at having her back.

“Hey, Beautiful, miss me?” Aurvandil asks, stroking along the wooden frame of the console before beginning to push buttons and flip levers. Raea hums again, the warm lights in the wall pulsing gently in affirmation. Aurvandil smiles. “Take me home.”

* * *

Thor wakes up to Loki frowning down at them. Loki’s taken her female form, her dark hair braided over one shoulder and her slim face twisted into a frown.

“When Heimdall said you were wandering Midgard on your own, this is not what I imagined,” Loki states, her hands on her hips and one of her eyebrows raised questioningly. “Are you alright?”

Thor sits up and looks around. The scorched grass still bears the evidence of the Bifrost, and the dome is gone. So are Tony and Aurvandil. Thor frowns as they stand up. They look around themselves, their shoulders drooping and their frown more melancholy. Tony and Aurvandil had been good friends to them. Perhaps neither of them truly knew the extent of Thor’s worries, but they knew enough to comfort them, and their kindness and patience will leave a lasting impression on them, Thor is sure. They will miss the two dearly and mourn the time they could have shared.

“Thor?” Loki asks. She prods Thor in the arm and Thor bats her hand away playfully. 

“I’m fine, Loki,” Thor replies, their lips pulling into a smile as they throw an arm around Loki’s slim shoulders. Loki squeaks indignantly as Thor drags her into a hug, but she melts into the embrace soon after and hugs them back. “I am only thinking about these people I met. Strange people, but kind. I think you would have liked them.” Loki raises both eyebrows this time and Thor scoffs. “You secretly like my friends, I can tell, you’re just refusing to admit it.”

Loki shoves Thor off her and laughs. “Perhaps, but you have no proof, so your theory remains just that: a theory.”

“I’ll have proof one day,” Thor proclaims and Loki rolls her eyes. Thor smiles at their sister, and hopes that one day, they can introduce her to Aurvandil and Tony. They’re sure that friendship would be legendary, and perhaps they could help her be more sure of herself, like they did for Thor.


End file.
